Virgil van Dijk has challenged Liverpool to show they are a better team than the one who limped to an "unacceptable" fifth-place Premier League finish last season. The Reds captain admits it will take some time before Andoni Iraola's ideas start to bear fruit as the new head coach prepares for his first competitive game at Anfield, against Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
New coach, new ideas
Liverpool kicked off their new campaign with a hard-fought 2-2 draw at Newcastle United last Sunday and welcome a Forest side who are looking for their third successive league win at Anfield this weekend.
Van Dijk, writing in his pre-match programme notes, reiterated his belief that last season was nowhere near good enough as he called on the squad to try and implement Iraola's game-plan as quickly as possible.
"When you have a new coach with new plans and new ideas, it is always going to take a bit of time to put those into practice," Van Dijk says. "But it is down to us to do that as quickly as we can. I can tell you that we are working extremely hard every day on the training ground, because we all want to improve, we want to be better and more consistent."
Captain's call for improvement
"We want to win, ultimately. At Liverpool, that should always be the aim. You don't need me to tell you that last season was tough, unacceptable in my opinion. We are better than that, much better in fact, and now we need to show it."
Club captain Van Dijk, who is now in his 10th season at Anfield, added: "Like I say, we showed some good things against Newcastle. St. James' Park is always a tough place to go, and though obviously we were not happy with the goals we conceded, I think we showed good character to twice come back and we worked extremely hard as a team to take something from the game.
"It wasn't a victory, which is what we wanted of course, but it was a deserved point in my opinion, and we take that and move on."
Focus on Forest
"This will be another tough game, make no mistake. We know how dangerous Nottingham Forest can be, and we will need to perform at our best if we want to get the three points.
"Again, it starts with the basics; togetherness, hard work, desire and commitment. If we have those – and we will – then we will give ourselves the best possible chance to show our quality and get the result we all want."
